A long time ago in China, there existed three Books of Peace that proved so threatening to the reigning powers that they had them burned. Many years later Maxine Hong Kingston wrote a Fourth Book of Peace, but it too was burned--in the catastrophic Berkeley-Oakland Hills fire of 1991, a fire that coincided with the death of her father. Now in this visionary and redemptive work, Kingston completes her interrupted labor, weaving fiction and memoir into a luminous meditation on war and peace, devastation and renewal.

From the Publisher:A memoir of the author's losses to fire and her work with Vietnam veterans also includes a novel about a Chinese American man and his wife who flee to Hawaii to evade the draft during the Vietnam War, only to work with Vietnam veterans.

Author Bio

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston was born to immigrant parents in California soon after her father's laundry business failed. Her mother had been a physician in China, but in America the family was desperately poor; Kingston's parents worked as servants and fruit pickers during her childhood. Caught between her Chinese home life and the surrounding American culture, Kingston was a shy, quiet child. She graduated from Berkeley in 1962, and two years later was certified as a teacher. She taught math and English, then moved with her husband and son to Hawaii, where she continued to teach. She published her acclaimed and influential autobiography, "Woman Warrior", in 1976. She has also written fiction, and has been named a "Living Treasure" in Hawaii.

Praise

Kirkus Reviews"A colorful meandering that is most original and compelling when it focuses on the author's hard-won peace with her family." 07/01/2003